"Elder Lord..."

Li Liang, who was kneeling on the floor and trying his best to draw Renshu's attention to him, turned towards the voice that muttered his name.

"Her power controlling ring... It's glowing," A stunned Ruan Fai gawked.

A few crimson drops made their presence known on his pristine robes. He looked up at a pale hand, streaked with dark resentment. It was adorned with a thick power controlling ring of the purest, refined silver that was now burning into the skin like a dazzling band of white-hot magnesium.

"Elder Lord Li!! Why is it responding to this?!" Ruan Fai cried out in anguish, his eyes darting everywhere, taking in the destruction of the Courtroom. He couldn't bring himself to speak of demonic powers. As a dark tendril swooped down at him, he flung a talisman at it. It dissipated with a shriek. "How is she using this energy?!"

"That's not the point right now, Sect Leader!" Li Liang replied, noticing the blood beginning to drip from her nostrils. "If you don't stop Second Mistress now, she'll collapse! A-Shing, take Renshu away."
After covering his hand with a spirit warding talisman so as not to come in contact with the dark, swirling smoke, he reached out to grab her shoulder. Instantly, he was flung off his feet.

"Baba!" Shing cried, cradling his son in his arms, who was clinging to him for dear life.

"I'm alright," Liang gasped, narrowly avoiding a collision with the wall. "The aura is too strong." He winced as his wrist throbbed painfully.

Caihong fell to her knees, wrath oozing out of her pores. A scream tore its way out of her throat and she lowered her head to the floor, coughing up bloody spittle.

"How do we get rid of it?!" Ruan Fai exclaimed. "I can't imagine how is she even doing this... How... Why..."

Zhang observed, "It's impossible to breach this from outside, Sect Leaders. The only way to stop any further damage is to find a chink in the armour and dissipate it from within." He helplessly watched his favourite student spasm on the floor. "Quickly."

Suddenly there was a sickening crunch of snapping bones followed by a loud gasp.

Everyone swivelled to look. One of the criminals lay dead on the floor, his head drooping to the side at an unnatural angle, blood pouring out of his gaping mouth.

Renshu whimpered.

The dark spirits screeched with glee and encircled her convulsing body, relishing in all the fury gushing out of her.

A weeping Ruan Fai fell to his knees before her. "Caihong... My child... What are you doing? Please stop, you will ruin yourself..." He crawled towards her, ignoring the dark aura trying to kick him away. "Caihong, baby, I beg you... please... Baba loves you so much, please stop, listen to Baba..."

Caihong shifted her gaze to him, her cheeks stained with the bloody tears that were streaming down them. The dark aura surrounding her like a shield seemed to fall away just a bit. Highly encouraged, Ruan Fai shifted closer, ignoring the crushing agony in his sternum. "Caihong, baby..." He raised his shaking hands to cup her face. "Please stop... These tricks d-don't do anyone any good! They only destroy you. Please..."

The sound of the second snap of bone accompanied by the wrenching of flesh echoed across the room. She turned her face away.

"Caihong!!" Ruan Fai howled. The energy shield was up again and he clutched his chest, trying to gather all the stamina he could to prevent the resentment from infiltrating him.

"AAAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!" Caihong wailed, clawing at the ground. She writhed on the ground, her robes drenched with sweat. She rolled onto her side, heaving mouthfuls of almost black crimson.

"Please, someone save my child!!" He implored. "I can't penetrate this without going insane myself, please, please... My daughter... She can't take it anymore, please help... Please..." His vision began to swim and he clenched his eyes shut, unable to look anymore. He seemed to have no choice other than to helplessly watch his child get submerged in this doom.

"CAIHONG!!"

Renshu looked up from where he was hiding his face in his father's lapels. "Baba?" He sniffled.

Shing looked at him, "Yes, son?"

"A-Hong? Where is A-Hong?"

"Ah, she is..."

A screech rang in the air.

Renshu whipped his head around to look. His hazel orbs widened and he began to scramble away from Shing.

"Ren! What- Where are you going?" Shing grabbed him by the forearms, refusing to let go.

"Leave me!! Ren has to go to A-Hong!! A-Hong is crying!!" Renshu squealed. "A-Hong is hurting!! Ren needs to go and give A-Hong kisses!!"

"Kisses won't do the job here, stupid boy. You don't know how to deal with this."

"LEAVE ME!!! BABA, PLEASE!!"

"No, I... OUCH!!"

Renshu chomped on Shing's fingers, successfully freeing himself and dashed over to Caihong's quivering frame.

"Renshu!! Shing yelled at the top of his voice. " That's a dark energy shield! Stop! Stop right there!!"

"Shing, why did you let him go?!" Liang asked, white with fear.

"I wasn't, he bit me! Li Renshu, get back here! Or I will grab you by the back of your neck and drag you back to your room!"

"Shing! What are you saying?! Are you mad?! Don't you know how sensitive this issue is?!"

"He needs to obey his father!"

"That doesn't mean you will bring up something so touchy here!!"

Renshu took a deep breath and gulped. Ignoring them, he crouched down next to Caihong and pulled her into his arms. "A-Hong..."

His response was a mouthful of blood that painted the front of his robes.

A tear rolled down his face. She looked like she was caught in the jaws of a nightmare. It was an apt description of the way he was feeling as well.

Her eyes were glassy and unfocused. She looked wild.

Renshu hovered his arms over her and entered the circle of dark energy which enveloped him like a hurricane surrounding the eye of the storm. He tensed, bracing himself to be thrown back or lashed to pieces, but the black tendrils parted for him as if they recognised him. As if Caihong couldn't bear to hurt him, even in such a crazed state.

He began to draw wave after wave of spiritual energy from within himself. It gathered around them in a gleaming white cloud, light to Caihong's darkness, serenity to her chaos.

'Please get well, A-Hong,' he prayed, tears incessantly rolling from his cheeks. 'RenRen will give you lots of kisses.'

******

She was an arrow finally shot from an overly taut bowstring. She had no fear of hitting the ground after her trajectory, for the sky was her limit and her boundaries were limitless. She could relish in this feeling forever - this sensation of being carried by the tidal waves of floodwater as it found its powerful release from the cracked walls of a dam that had been holding it in for too long.

She would have loved to freefall and have the wind rush in her ears and blow away all the fears of hitting the rock bottom... But why didn't anyone tell her that the friction between her and the spray of water would become so painful?

Earlier Caihong had been whooping with exhilaration, getting drunk on the sheer adrenaline. She felt like she could run a full-scale marathon and yet be ready to run more. Perhaps she could even set the world ablaze just to watch it burn.

But now the air seemed to be sawing its way into her lungs, making her breath come out in wheezing gasps. Her nose felt blocked.

It was no issue. She could always breathe through her mouth. Wasn't it something everyone did when they caught a cold? But she had to run this race. She had to win it; it didn't matter if her limbs felt like they would be yanked off her body.

Suddenly she couldn't breathe through her mouth either. The air had transformed into syrup and her lungs felt like elastic sacs which had been crammed to the point of bursting.

Her blood was boiling off all the precious oxygen, making white-hot spikes skewer her from within. She opened her mouth to scream but all that came out was a shrill gurgle.

She wasn't riding on the waves any longer.

She was drowning. Something a lot worse than free falling.

Icy panic immobilised her.

'Please save me... Someone... Anyone... I don't want to drown...'

Her flesh felt like it had been pierced with stinging nettles. She couldn't move within an inch of her life to try to kick back to the surface.

'Save me... I beg you... It hurts...'

Intense fear, followed by more panic.

An awful emptiness began to gnaw at her and her eyes ached too much to even cry. Her bones seemed to rattle with the near-constant screeching of the evil spirits which drowned her cries.

'I don't want to die... Please... I can't breathe... It hurts, please save me...'

No one could hear her.

In the beginning, Caihong felt that she had been blessed. But now it seemed that every blessing was a curse.

'I don't want to die...'

It was all ugly. All of it hurt. Very few ways to die were of the contrary.

The sunlight was nowhere to be seen. She seemed to have fallen into a bottomless ocean of dark molasses. With a superhuman effort, she tried to struggle again, straining for the light, but she barely managed to make a splash before she was sinking again, her heart hammering against her ribs.

Each chance to breathe became further apart.

It was like having a knife held to the chest and being told to prevent the heart from beating. But the heart would beat. And just like the heart would keep beating her lungs would inhale as well, be it air or dense treacle.

With the weariness sinking deep within her pores, all illusions of surviving vanished. She knew that she had been kissed by the sun for the last time.
In moments she would be floating like the seaweed, nothing more than flesh and bones ready to decay in the currents.

Oh, how she yearned to be saved, how she longed for a rescuing hand to tow her back to life, to the world she knew and loved.

"A-Hong!! Fight back!!"

Warm quieting brightness flooded her vision in the way the moon lit up the night sky. All of a sudden, she wasn't drowning anymore. She was floating in a sea of clouds. She might have wondered how the clouds were supporting her weight, as her Mommy always complained that she was growing up way too fast, but for some reason, it was too difficult to form the words when the burn in her sinews was so loud that it overpowered all rational thought.

"A-Hong... Please, come back."

Oh. Could she? Hadn't her lungs frozen over? Sure, she wasn't sinking anymore but then that would mean she was floating, all waterlogged and blue...

"A-Hong is strong. A-Hong can do this. A-Hong taught RenRen how to fight. Now fight back."

Her hands inched up towards the white cord of light, towards the trust that even at the brink of madness, even if she was driven right out of her mind, she could return to herself.

It was strange to feel so let down when she finally found the strength to gasp and the sharp edges of reality started coming into focus. She kept her eyes closed for a long time, trying to breathe through the cold tightness in her chest.

"A-Hong..." A breathy whisper tickled her ears. She was suddenly aware of a pair of soft arms wrapped securely around her, and the little huffs of air fanning her neck.

She had made it.

"A-Hong, please open your eyes," The soft voice whispered again. "RenRen will give you lots of kisses and not get shy about a single one."

She tried to snuggle closer to the warmth to ease the cramped sensation in her stomach. As if realising what she needed, the arms pulled her closer. A scent of aromatic, musty pine with notes of citrus and spice engulfed her dazed senses. It was a distinctive, earthy scent combined with the primal undertones of sweat, that proved itself to be sui generis.

A pair of lips landed on her cheek like a dew freckled petal caught in a breeze, extremely tender with the smallest hint of coolness.

"Mmmhh..." Caihong slowly inched her eyes open, resisting the heaviness of her eyelids. A pair of sweet, hazel orbs came in the line of her blurred vision. The gaze on her was so loving, transcendent even, that her eyelids fell shut again. A warm hand cupped her chin as another gentle, pure kiss lighted on her other cheek. A shy thumb wiped the sweat from beneath her eye. She could feel the warm breaths on her neck again, the downy eyelashes soft against her skin.

"A-Hong..." The voice murmured her name repeatedly, breathing her in. "A-Hong didn't lose it."

What nonsense. She had flown straight out of her body. The world was like a black hole and she was helplessly floating in that ether. She had lost control completely - she had felt like she would never come back.

'You brought me back,' she tried to say. 'I was lost.'

"Weisheng," she exhaled almost inaudibly, opening her eyes to peer at those affectionate hazel eyes.

"A-Hong is the best."

She tried to lift her hands to caress the soft skin but her leaden fingers were too stubborn.

"A-Hong is fine now."

'You brought me ashore. Tethered me to you and brought me back.'

The intensely uncomfortable, wrung out sensation was gradually seeping away from her, a grounding calmness was beginning to replace it.

Yes, she felt okay. She could certainly hope for it.

And, oh.

Oh.

It felt heavenly.

Hope beaded her skin like dew on spring grass, trying to warm up her frosty insides. She could feel it radiating in to soothe her blood. It formed such perfect spheres, each one like a tiny world of its own.

No amount of pumping, heady adrenaline could ever match up to this. It took time to catch up, but it was the best thing she could ever hope to experience. It was similar to the pleasant hum in her limbs after swinging an axe, like stretching after a competition and...

Coming back home.

Going away was easy. Coming home was hard.

She was home.

She had made it.

A contented sigh escaped her lips and Caihong shut her eyes. She allowed herself to dissolve into the dark, relaxed oblivion.

She had returned to the hearth where Hope survives best.

She was home now, where Hope burns the brightest.